


Anastasis

by Avid_Aviator



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003) - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: BAMF Obi-Wan Kenobi, Depressed Obi-Wan Kenobi, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt Obi-Wan Kenobi, Hurt/Comfort, Obi-Wan Kenobi Needs a Hug, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Temporary Character Death, a lot of that one, and therapy, i don't know how to tag things so, immortal Obi-Wan
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-17 19:46:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29230992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avid_Aviator/pseuds/Avid_Aviator
Summary: Obi-Wan is immortal- he doesn't always heal and he doesn't have a great immune system. Every time he dies the Force says 'not yet' and shoves him back into his body. The more deaths he accumulates, the more he wonders- what's the point in not-dying when you hate being alive?
Comments: 32
Kudos: 168





	1. Chapter 1

The first time it happened, Obi-Wan was still called Niivan.

He and his parents were in a transport on their way to Alderaan when their little Stewjoni starship was attacked. Pirates had come through and shot everyone aboard. Even a little red-headed baby in his crib.

Niivan started screaming when he feels the fear of the other passengers. He's too young to know what that means but it scares him too. He screams when he sees the Bothan that has come to kill him, he screams when the blaster is put up to his chest, and then the pirate pulls the trigger.

And Niivan keeps screaming.

He's still screaming long after the pirates are gone and his skin has somehow knit itself together. He screams and screams and screams until his six month old body just can't anymore. When a lone Jedi comes across the ship (three days later) Niivan is still alive. The Jedi takes him back to Coruscant with her. Names him Obi-Wan because she does not know any better. He is put in the special care of an aging creche master until he is a little older, when he will be inducted into a clan. No one knows what happened to his ship or why he was the only one alive. Not yet.

* * *

The second time it happened, Obi-Wan is thirteen years old, and he isn't a Jedi anymore.

He's supposed to be an Agricorps worker even though he has very little connection to the living things of the Force. (A fact he does not yet find to be ironic, but he will. He will.) He had survived another group of pirates, with an aloof and cold Jedi Master known as Qui-Gon Jinn. He had been left on Bandomeer with Agricorps.

And then he had managed to get caught by Offworld Mining.

Had managed to get shot by Offworld Mining.

And like before, he screamed when the blast struck his temple.

And kept screaming as his brain and skull and skin knit itself back together.

* * *

He didn't think much of it: offering to die for this Jedi Master. He's thirteen and just survived a blaster to the temple from 10 feet away. He doesn't think there's much he couldn't do.

* * *

He didn't realize how much explosions could hurt.

* * *

Master Qui-Gon took him as a Padawan because Obi-Wan was "not something that should fall into enemy hands". The Jedi Master thought there must be something in Obi-Wan's genetics that allowed him to heal the way he did. If that genetic component could be isolated, could be copied... well, it could be disastrous. So the Jedi Master decided to keep his secret, even from the other Jedi. This meant they didn't really test how far these strange resurrection abilities could carry him. But considering he has been fatally shot twice now, and blown up once, Obi-Wan thinks it's safe to assume that he can't die.

* * *

Obi-Wan also thinks it's totally unfair that whatever crazy healing factor he has doesn't kick in unless he's actually dying.

* * *

He doesn't not-die again until he decides to stay with the Young on Melidaa/Daan.

Tahl is mortally wounded and Qui-Gon wants to leave, but there are children dying here and they don't come back. Qui-Gon leaves him. It doesn't hurt as much as he perhaps thought it might. To Master Jinn, Obi-Wan was just the potential for mass destruction that needed to be contained.

Obi-Wan liked the Young. They thought he was just a normal kid. Just like them. They didn't know any better yet.

In the months that follow being left behind, Obi-Wan learns war. He learns hunger. He gives up food for the others, because he can't die anyway. (He can starve. And it hurts in ways he didn't know anything could.) The Young are good at surviving. Not as good as Obi-Wan, but he is practically immortal, so maybe it evens out.

Considering Obi-Wan ends up getting shot in the chest again, they're probably ahead, really. Cerasi is the only one to see him get hit, and, consequently, heal. She is confused. Scared. It's not like Obi-Wan isn't, but he's had three deaths and coming back from that to think about it. She doesn't tell anyone. And then she can't because she was shot in the stomach and she is dying and she can't come back.

She dies in his arms.

Obi-Wan thinks he died too, but it doesn't really matter because as always he just. keeps. breathing.

Even when he shouldn't be able to.

* * *

Master Jinn eventually comes to pick him back up. Obi-Wan's not-death total is up to eight. Master Jinn says he has to go back to the temple, that he is still "not something that should fall into others hands". Obi-Wan isn't sure what it means that he doesn't say ''enemy's" anymore.


	2. Chapter 2

Master Jinn slowly comes to love his new padawan. Obi-Wan is a conundrum Qui-Gon didn't know how to deal with at first. If it was the Force that kept bringing Obi-Wan back to life, he must be important. But if it was some genetic anomaly, and someone were to find out...

It would be very dangerous.

Not that the boy would care. Obi-Wan acted invincible. (To be fair, he mostly was.) No matter how much the dying hurt, Obi-Wan wouldn't hesitate to do so if he thought it would help.

Qui-Gon starts to worry about a time when he wouldn't come back.

* * *

They don't talk about the not dying, and they don't talk about love, and they don't talk about the line between reckless and suicidal. Not yet. Not until Obi-Wan goes missing for nine months. He had disappeared while they were on a mission to Raxis iv. Master Jinn and Master Windu find him tucked away in a compound on a tiny moon just past the Outer Rims. They arrive just in time to see Obi-Wan get shot in the chest. There are already gaping wounds in his leg, arm, hand, and stomach.

He is screaming.

He keeps screaming and screaming as each wound knits itself together until he is whole. There are scientists dispassionately taking notes.

Mace doesn't understand, but he doesn't protest as Qui-Gon tears the place apart. He helps, even. Obi-Wan is not the only one these people have hurt.The two Jedi Masters and one Jedi Padawan are soon on their transport, leaving a burning compound behind.

As Qui-Gon pilots the ship out of the atmosphere, Mace finds the boy some clothes.

Obi-Wan doesn't talk.

Mace doesn't ask. (Not yet.) He saw a 15 year old shot 4 times. He can imagine what else they might have done. He doesn't need details.

* * *

Obi-Wan is both more and less reckless than before his abduction. While he seems to care about himself even less, he does shy away from mortal wounds.

Qui-Gon is relieved. Concerned, but mostly relieved. He doesn't like watching Obi-Wan die, but he does worry about the fact that Obi-Wan doesn't seem to mind dying.

* * *

Later, Obi-Wan will tell his Master some of what happened. No details, just vague mentions of pain and dying dying dying--

And coming back.

He doesn't remember when the coming back became the worst part.

* * *

Obi-Wan turns 16 with no fanfare. This life-day is spent on the run; Duchess of Mandalore in tow. The blonde spitfire doesn't quite know what to think of her younger, redheaded Jedi protector. He is handsome, to be sure, but there is something _other_ about him, and it both intrigues and scares her.

It's infuriating. And irresistible. 

Qui-Gon puts up with the arguments (debates!) that result from Duchess Kryze's attempts to seduce his padawan. Satine had made him smile again. Qui-Gon will not begrudge him whatever happiness he has managed to find.

* * *

They make it through the entirety of the Mandalorian Civil War without Obi-Wan dying once, only for him to take a metal shard to the forehead when their shuttle crashes.

He doesn't have time to scream, and this time his body stills completely.

Satine is crying and begging Qui-Gon to do something.

Qui-Gon is frozen. Both he and the Duchess escaped with only scrapes and bruises. But Obi-Wan isn't breathing.

The front of his skull is caved in and a piece of their shuttle sticks out of the mess above his eye. It's not fixing itself. It this is then? Is a shuttle crash the one Obi-Wan doesn't come back from?

Qui-Gon kneels at his padawan's side, and he reaches for answers in the Force.

Carefully, ever so carefully, he pulls the jagged metal from his dead padawan's face. Closes the boys eyes for the last time.

Satine is crying and Qui-Gon stands tot comfort her. She is only 17 for all that she is a Mandalorian Duchess. The two stand together in their grief. Qui-Gon is too shocked to cry. He presses a kiss to Satine's head.

"That's disgusting. You're old enough to be her grandfather." The wonderfully accented voice cut through the sounds of Satine's weeping.

It almost seemed too good to be true, even for Obi-Wan, but when they turn to look, the dead padawan was sitting up and grinning at them. There was blood all over his face, in his hair, in his teeth. But there was no hole in his forehead. He was breathing again.

Satine surged forward, pressing her lips to his insistently.

Qui-Gon would have turned away to give them a bit of privacy had Obi-Wan not pushed the Duchess aside.

"Satine, I've got blood all over me, don't-"

She cut him off with a sharp slap to the cheek.

"Obi-Wan Kenobi, you just died! Don't tell me I can't kiss you if I want to."

Qui-Gon was struggling not to laugh for some reason. Hysteria, maybe.

"Duchess." 

"Jedi."

The two stared each other down.

Obi-Wan nodded gently in his master's direction.

Satine blushed.

"Oh! Master Jinn! I-"

"It is alright." And with that, Qui-Gon knelt down by the two and wrapped them both in his arms.

It was alright.

All right.

* * *

After Mandalore, Qui-Gon sits Obi-Wan down and the talk. They finally talk about love, family, and the not-dying thing that Obi-Wan does.

Obi-Wan confesses that he considered staying with Satine because she saw him as a person above a scientific quirk.

Qui-Gon tells him that quirk or not, losing him would be too much to bear.

Obi-Wan does his best not to die anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am messing with the timeline of Obi-Wan's apprenticeship a little bit, I know, but don't be too mad at me pls.   
> Do let me know if there are any specific scenes or interactions you would like to see more of or if there is something you think could be better about this story! I am open to ideas- especially for the time between phantom menace and the attack of the clones. 
> 
> thanks for reading!!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW depictions of suicidal thoughts and 2 suicide attempts. Please skip this chapter if you think that will be harmful to you. End notes will contain a summary of the chapter. Take care of yourselves lovelies <3

There is a stretch of time -a glorious two months- where Obi-Wan thinks they've made it. It feels like they've finally broken through the boundary and everything can be okay now. Maybe his master does care for him. Maybe Obi-Wan can have something normal.

And then Tahl dies.

And doesn't come back.

And Qui-Gon says

“It should have been you.”

* * *

There are two times, only two, that Obi-Wan dies on purpose and it isn't to save anyone.

The first is mere days after Tahl- Master Uvain dies. He is tired, hurting, and so, so alone. Qui-Gon hasn't even looked at him since they returned from New Apsalon.

He knows this probably won't take, but he's desperate enough that he tries it anyway. He just wants peace; just this once. One time not coming back would be enough.

Obi-Wan swallows an entire bottle of sleeping pills because the universe hasn't tried that yet. He doesn't know what it'll do but he feels vaguely nauseous before falling asleep.

He wakes up hours later and can't feel anything other than hopeless.

* * *

The second time is a bit later and a bit more complicated. For some reason Master Jinn doesn't repudiate him for all he can't stand to speak to him. It's been just under a year since Master Uvain died. The Jinn-Kenobi team have not left the Temple in that time. The Mind Healers will not clear Master Jinn for field duty. Obi-Wan doesn't think they'd clear him either, if he ever went to see them.

Obi-Wan has caught up and gotten ahead in his academic studies, and he keeps up with his saber skills through sparring if not his master's instruction. His friends (all three of them) are out of the Temple more often than not. Obi-Wan likes to think he's gotten used to being alone. The Temple feels like a cage. There is nowhere to go, no one to talk to, no one to care.

There isn't really a trigger, just vague ideas that have been stirring in the back of his head for a few months. In the shuttle crash on Mandalore, he hadn't come back immediately. Perhaps the secret to death is there.

Maybe there is a way out.

A way to peace.

Obi-Wan manages to get a vibro-blade into the temple, and for a few weeks he doesn't do anything with it.

He keeps it under his pillow; a comforting thought for those long nights.

Now that he has a viable plan to stay dead... he is hesitant to use it. He doesn't know what comes after. Maybe the Force doesn't want Obi-Wan, after all it just keeps sending him back. He doesn't know what that means (that the Force doesn't want him either).

Eventually he goes down to a maintenance room on the lower levels anyway.

They only check the pipes down here once every few months barring accidents, and he doesn't care about the questions he still has. He shoves the vibro-blade beneath his fifth rib. It hurts, but after that is a blissful nothingness.

He dies.

And he doesn't come back.

He did not leave a note.

* * *

It has been three days since anyone has seen Obi-Wan Kenobi. His Master hadn't noticed but Mace goes looking for the boy anyway. Qui-Gon is too lost in his grief to know what he has done to his padawan. It is inexcusable, but it is understandable. Mace would like to believe the two can still work things out if Qui-Gon can get better.

The young council member asks around for the missing padawan for some time, going as the Force directs. He learns more than he thought he would, if not the information he wanted. For all the boy's seclusion, Obi-Wan seems to be well liked in the Temple. People miss him.

Some are worried.

Mace is becoming very worried.

The Force leads him to the lower levels, of all places. A sense of dread envelops him as he works his way down. There is hardly anything this deep in the Temple, and if the Force is guiding him to Obi-Wan down here...

There is very little the padawan could be doing down here, and none of it is good.

He ends up in the maintenance area below one of the swimming rooms. The only way someone ends up down here is if something is wrong.

Unfortunately, this time is no exception.

Mace knows immediately that he had started looking for Obi-Wan far too late. There is an aura of death and _wrongness_ in the Force, and the smell of stale blood in the cold air. He rounds a corner, ducking under a low pipe, and then he sees him.

Obi-Wan is collapsed on his side in a congealed pool of blood. He is not breathing. Mace is three days too late to save this padawan but... Mace remembers watching a teenager take four blaster wounds and walk away with no scars. He wonders what is different this time.

Eyeing the vibro-blade sticking out of a thin chest, he thinks it's the metal. Or maybe it's the fact that it's still _there._

With a trembling hand he reaches down and pulls the blade from the boys chest.

Seconds tick by. Mace puts the vibro-blade to the side and waits. He refused to believe that _this_ is the end of one of the Order's brightest students. More than that, he refused to believe that this is the end of _Obi-Wan._ He was more than just another promising student, he was a bright light in the Force. He was so important to so many people; not because of what he produced, but because of who he is. Somehow, though they'd hardly interacted with one another, the boy had ensnared Mace, too.

And now...

Now, Mace was left to wonder 'why this?'

What brought the best and brightest so low? Was it Qui-Gon's distance in his grief? Or did it go farther, go to the reason it was so strange to see this boy lying dead?

This moment of quiet contemplation stretches indeterminably and snaps apart with Obi-Wan's eyelashes.

Obi-Wan takes a gasping breath in.

Mace looks into green, empty eyes, and knows the boy wishes he hadn't.

* * *

Obi-Wan had been staring at the tapestry of daffodils on Mace's wall for hours.

The Master had brought the teen to his own quarters, cleaned him up, and made tea. Eyeing Obi-Wan's guant frame, he had started to cook something too.

Now, there was an untouched cup of tea and a cooling bowl of soup on the low table in front of Obi-Wan. The Padawan had his feet up in the seat with him and was hugging his knees tightly.

It was silent.

Mace leaned forward, hands clasped together in front of him with his elbows on his knees. He didn't really know where to start.

"Obi-Wan-"

"I'm sorry, Master. Please don't send me away. Just-just give me the blade back and then bury me with it. I'll be out of the way, and if you leave it I won't come back."

"Obi-Wan, please." Mace swallowed hard. It was so much worse than he'd imagined.

Obi-Wan's jaw clicked shut and he stared resolutely at his knees, trying not to cry. _He had been so close._

"Obi-Wan," Force, Mace was not qualified for this, "You know I can't let you kill yourself."

"Why not? I've been killing myself since I was 13. I just want it to be permanent for once."

_So much worse._

"Why?"

Obi-Wan met Mace's eyes for a brief second before staring back down at his knees.

"Because I'm tired. I'm so tired of-of dying and coming back and not mattering. I-I want it to be over but the Force won't take me...I'm scared."

"Scared of what?"

"Living."

* * *

Master Healer Baraab sighed deeply, thinking of the call she was going to have to make. For the most part, anything a patient told the mind healers was confidential; but if there was reason to believe the patient might be a danger to themselves or to someone else, the mind healers were allowed to contact the council.

Master Baraab had only had to call someone 7 times in her long career.

This would just have to be 8.

She opened her comm terminal and typed in a request to speak with the next available Council member.

The request blinked a waiting signal as she went back to her desk to finish up her paperwork for the day. She brushed an errant strand of gray hair out of her eyes, hoping for a quick answer. She was getting too old to stay up much longer.

Mace Windu answered her call.

"Healer Baraab?" He began as he appeared on screen. "Is everything alright?"

She shook her head, gray hair escaping to her face once more. She should get one of those new short cuts women were getting these days. Save herself a lot of trouble.

"I'm afraid not, Master Windu; but I'm glad it was you who answered."

"What can I do to help you?"

"It's about one of my patients."

"A suicide watch?"

Baraab couldn't help but notice the way his eyes flicked to the side.

"No. I want you to keep an eye on the Jinn-Kenobi team. Or get someone else to check in on them sometimes. Jinn seems to subconsciously think Tahl's death was Obi-Wan's fault. I don't think he'll really do anything to the boy, but everyone knows Obi-Wan hasn't been doing well lately either. I think we just really need to make sure he is taken care of. Get him to talk to somebody if we can. I don't want him dealing with unnecessary guilt if he knows how his master feels."

Master Windu glanced to the side again, eyeing the snoring padawan Master Baraab couldn't see.

_Too late._

* * *

Mace takes Obi-Wan back to Jinn's quarters. They find Qui-Gon sitting on the balcony off the sitting room, crying.

It is an all too familiar scene.

"Master Jinn." Mace broke the silence. If it was a greeting or a warning, Obi-Wan did not know.

"What do you want, Mace?" Qui-Gon's voice was flat. Dead.

"It is far past time you and I talk about your padawan." Mace crossed his arms, glaring at the back of Jinn's head.

"What about him?" HIs apathy struck an already grieving boy like a physical blow, "Is he in trouble?"

"No. _He_ isn't. You and I need to talk. We’ll start with Raxis IV."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When Tahl (Qui-Gon's lover) dies, Qui falls into a deep depression and in some way blames Obi since Obi could have come back if he had been the one to die. Obi-Wan loses all hope and attempts suicide by pills and then by stabbing himself. Leaving the blade in his body after death means he doesn't come back to life until Mace Windu finds his body and removes the blade. Mace goes to confront Qui-Gon when Qui's mindhealer asks the council to keep an eye on his treatment of his padawan.

**Author's Note:**

> I have like. 2 more chapters of this written but I know if I don't post it now I will forget about it for a few years lol. lemme know your thoughts


End file.
